Book Review: Beach Cocktails

Fruity, slushy beach drinks don’t get the kind of respect that craft cocktails get, and for good reason: It’s hard to be serious about a drink whose ingredients are measured in cubs, not ounces. Condensed milk, coconut rum, strawberries, Midori… those ingredients aren’t typically what you consider top shelf, either.

That said, a beach cocktail has its place (if not the beach, the pool at least), and it’s better to make them from scratch than rely on some premixed, corn syrup-infused gunk with T.G.I. Friday’s branding. So here you go. In Beach Cocktails — which carries no byline — you’ll find plenty of fruity-boozy classics, from margaritas to daiquiris, mojitos to coladas.

To be fair, it’s not all slushies. Some of the classics, including the Singapore Sling and the Pimm’s Cup, are included here, though more than a few stretch the definition of a “beach cocktail,” unless you consider a Manhattan to be a nice surfside tipple.

The book contains ample photography – a few cocktails but also plenty of stock beach/pool scenes – which is fine for breaking things up in an oversized hardcover designed, I’m sure, to be kept outside, by the pool.